I share a suite of offices with four other professionals.
We get along really well and sometimes socialize outside of office hours. We don’t have many complaints against our boss, and the issues that we do have with her aren’t that big of a deal. She’s really good about giving us time off for appointments and doesn’t count it towards our vacation time. And she’s very generous with holiday parties and celebrations. I do wish, however, that she was better at communication, as she is a bit intimidating. Recently, my coworkers and I were discussing some of our physical ailments, and we noticed that we had a lot in common. We thought that maybe the air conditioner was causing some of our problems, as our boss likes it set at a very low, very cold temperature. We are always cold and need to wear sweaters while at work. I’ve had a sore throat, and found out that several others did as well. Two of us have been having headaches, and asked our boss if we could have the temperature a bit warmer. She agreed, and it did help relieve the headache symptoms. But the most common ailment among the group was an increase in allergy symptoms. We asked an HVAC technician friend if he thought that our problems were related to the office air conditioning, and he said that it definitely could be the case. He said that there might be a leak in the a/c ductwork, allowing unfiltered air to keep circulating in the offices. He also said that if the a/c filter isn’t changed regularly, our air could be contaminated. We talked to our boss about our sicknesses and asked that our HVAC system be inspected for possible problems. Thankfully, she agreed.